Aftermath
by Julchen M. Liddell
Summary: After Graduation, the surviving six step outside into a world that they're familiar with but not expecting, and it turns out Junko Enoshima lied about this as well.


**Fill for this prompt: **

_**The people who survive go on to find out that the Monoworld isn't real, and that the police have been surrounding Hope's Peak in a siege for quite awhile now, and their families are okay and it's seeming all okay- but it's really not.**_

_**Because how could anyone forget what happened, and how could you forget if you lived it?**_

_**(AU where everyone's just shell shocked and everyone has their different reactions- id love to see the kids refusing to be apart because a part of them still thinks they're going to die. PTSD, everyone)**_

* * *

They don't know what they're expecting when they step out the door. Riots, maybe, or absolutely nothing. The crumbled remnants of a ruined city, no life left in sight. Just what is a despair-ridden world supposed to look like?

However, when the surviving six step out, what they see at first is an ordinary school lawn surrounded by a fence. Bright sunshine stings their eyes and for a moment they're all too much in awe at being outside to do anything else but stand there and take it in.

The tranquility is shattered by a sudden shout of "The door's opened!" and then they're surrounded by police officers.

For a brief moment their minds trick them into thinking these were the rioters Junko Enoshima told them about. Asahina gasps sharply and grabs onto Hagakure's arm on her right and Naegi's hand on her left. Naegi himself stumbles against Kirigiri, suddenly aware he's in pain and likely wouldn't be able to run if they had to. Kirigiri gives him a sharp look and steadies him, keeping a firm hand on his elbow. To their left, perhaps by instinct, Fukawa is cowering behind Togami, who is obviously surprised but trying hard not to show it.

The officers, probably more than twenty of them, halt their advance upon seeing their fear. One pushes his way to the front and walks cautiously to the group.

"I'm the chief of police, Souji Akasaka," he introduces, flashing his badge. "Are you students of Hope's Peak Academy?"

Still in shock, Naegi nods.

"But there are six of them," a confused voice speaks up from the back. "There were fifteen students who went missing. Where are the others?"

The group gives each other uneasy looks, and Kirigiri speaks up for them, collected and calm as always.

"They're dead."

No trembling voice, no sugarcoating, just the plain and simple fact that nine students, ten with the real Enoshima, had been killed in the few weeks they'd been trapped inside the school. Naegi's immensely grateful, not for the first time, that Kirigiri's there with them and allows himself to lean on her a little more. She lets him.

"D-Dead?" Akasaka splutters. "It's a _school_, how did nine kids-"

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions," Kirigiri interrupts smoothly, "but for right now we could use a paramedic."

Just like that, Naegi drops to his knees, acutely aware now of how much everything hurts. He should have figured there was no way he'd gotten out of his execution unscathed; free-falling quite a long ways while pinned to a desk and shattering into a concrete floor was taking its toll now. With everything that had been going on, with revealing the mastermind and Enoshima's trial and execution, he hasn't even paid it any mind. Naegi grimaces and holds a hand to his ribs. Some of them are definitely broken, and there's a throbbing pain in his left leg.

Maybe feeling the pain is his body's way of telling him he was safe now, and can show weakness.

Asahina shrieks when he falls and shakes his shoulder. "Naegi-kun?! Are you okay?!"

Togami scoffs, "He fell down a trash chute."

That's probably the closest thing to concern Naegi will ever get from him.

"Dude, going on for so long after that is probably the most hardcore thing I've ever seen." Hagakure shakes his head. "You're completely mad, Naegi-chi."

Fukawa mutters something that sounds like "Stupid, but..."

Officers are bustling around them now, apparently having recieved orders while they weren't paying attention. They enter the school heavily armed, just as Akasaka tells the six of them that an ambulance has arrived. With one arm around Kirigiri's shoulders and Asahina's hand on the other (which doesn't help much, honestly, but he appreciates the sentiment) Naegi hobbles over to it and they're all packed in to go to the hospital.

The paramedics try to convince the others to stay behind and assist the police, but a sharp "We stay together" from Togami and Kirigiri both shuts them down. Kirigiri gives Togami an appraising look, to which he responds with a glare. The others smile.

They leave just as the news reporters arrive.

* * *

Naegi has to stay in the hospital overnight for some reason. Nearly all his ribs were broken, as he thought, and his leg is badly sprained but thankfully not fractured. Apparently he's lucky to have gotten away without a serious concussion, or worse.

"How far did you fall?" the doctor asks incredulously.

"A long way."

Despite offers from the police to give the other five rides back to their homes so they could rest, reunite witht their families, and meet up again in the morning, the whole group again refuses to be parted. They cram into Naegi's single-person room. Togami naturally takes the one chair, Kirigiri's perched at the foot of the bed, and that leaves Asahina, Hagakure, and Fukawa to get comfortable on the floor. Officers are posted outside the door to keep news reporters out.

They sit quietly for a long time, and then Hagakure is the first to speak.

"So Enoshima lied."

Togami glances at the officer outside the open door and orders Fukawa to close it before they continue.

"Are we really surprised?" Kirigiri sighs. "We're lucky the escape switch actually was an escape switch, considering her nature. It could have just as well have been a detonation button."

"All that stuff she said," Asahina says in a small voice, "about the Monoworld, and all that... It was all a trick? To get us to want to stay in the school?"

"H-How dirty," Fukawa adds, scowling darkly. "T-To think we almost fell for it..."

Naegi's lost in thought. "They're going to want to know," he says slowly. "How everyone died. There was a lot of variety, after all."

Asahina bites her lower lip. "Will they even believe us? The murders, Monobear, the executions, our memories. How one person set it all up. The whole thing, you know. You gotta admit the whole thing's pretty insane. I wouldn't believe us if I hadn't been there."

"They'll find the bodies in the morgue," Kirigiri assures. "We can also tell them where to find the trial and execution rooms, if we don't want to go back and point them out ourselves."

The group falls silent for a moment. They certainly do not want to go back.

"Well, I figure we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!" Hagakure puts on an air of cheerfulness and optimism, but everyone knows he feels the same as all the rest. They're wondering how they're going to move on from the despair game, how the future is going to play out. How will they begin to explain everything that went down in Hope's Peak? How will they explain to the families of those killed that their loved ones were dead, murdered in horrible ways by the instigation of one person?

Maizono's fans, Oowada's gang, Kuwata's teammates, Yamada's readers... It wasn't just family members who were going to be affected by their deaths. Naegi's stomach twists to think of it. And it was their job to tell the story.

"It's over but it's not," he mumbles, so quietly he isn't sure anyone hears him, but Kirigiri reaches over and squeezes his hand in a rare show of empathy.

Akasaka comes in a little while later and tell them that there's going to be a full search of the school the next day, their families have been informed of their safety and will meet with them then also, and at some point he would like to hear the whole story.

"As soon as you're ready," he says. "No big hurry, though."

They all know it's a lie. The man is itching to hear everything, the spiriting away of fifteen teenagers, hiding them right in plain sight, in a place tantalizingly close but unbreachable. He must have been going mad with curiosity.

"Tomorrow," Kirigiri says. She's taken on the role of de facto leader, since nobody else really wants to speak to anybody on the outside. "It seems we're doing everything else tomorrow anyway. It'll be good to get it out while we still remember the details."

Akasaka nods and leaves. Later, the hospital's kind enough to procure five of what look like yoga mats for those not as fortunate to get a bed like Naegi, and the group of six settles in for the night.

* * *

It's been the longest, most exhausting day of his life (when was the last time he'd slept? Before they first found Mukuro Ikusaba's body, he thinks) but Naegi can't sleep. Every time he closes his eyes he hears the rhythmic _bang bang bang _of the trash compact behind him, growing louder and louder as he gets closer. He can't move or make a sound, and in his dreams there is no Alter Ego to open the hatch and send him falling through the floor to safety.

_ Bang. Bang. Bang. _

The mad, leering face of a blonde girl with no freckles waving as she's sent to the same fate, completely delighted with her own failure. The same face, with freckles, impaled with countless spears and a look of complete shock and betrayal. That face burned beyond recognition. That face looking up with a confused expression when the compact takes a second too long to come down.

She's dead and gone and Naegi can't get Junko Enoshima's face out of his head. It also belongs to Mukuro Ikusaba, he supposes, but she had also been Junko in the beginning.

The cause of so many nightmares the past few weeks, and the cause of many more to come. Junko Enoshima, he was sure, was going to haunt him for a good long time.

_ Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang._

More images come the longer he tries to sleep. In perfect order he sees Sayaka Maizono's dead, stabbed and bloody body in his shower, and the look of sheer terror on Leon Kuwata's face as he's dragged off to a batting ring to pay for what he'd done.

Chihiro Fujisaki, who just wanted to be strong, bludgeoned and crucified with his eyes wide open. Mondo Oowada, who hadn't even said a word in his own defense, unable to raise his head and look Kiyotaka Ishimaru in the eyes. A motorcycle going faster and faster until there's nothing left of the person on it.

Celestia Ludenberg, hiding behind a facade of lies and big dreams, who only just wanted to get out more than anyone. Who was so terrified of becoming Taeko Yasuhiro again she orchestrated the death of one too broken to fight back, and one whom she'd once trusted completely. Celestia Ludenberg didn't even get the dramatic death she'd craved.

Sakura Oogami, who killed herself for the sake of everyone else. Alter Ego, who paid the price for it.

Mukuro Ikusaba, betrayed and murdered by her little sister, the little sister she adored and who didn't understand that maybe, just maybe, her twin didn't get off on despair the same way she did.

Junko Enoshima comes back to the forefront, gleefully clutching her Monobear and cackling as she sends herself to her death.

Giving up on sleep for now, Naegi rolls over in bed and thinks of his own little sister. Had she changed much in the few weeks since he'd seen her? Was he going to see her tomorrow? What was he going to say to her, and their parents?

He lays there for a long time, and around three in the morning, the still of the night is broken by the sound of Asahina crying. She sniffles for a few minutes, loudly, until Togami snaps "Keep it down, will you?" and Naegi knows they aren't the only two having a sleepless night.

"I'm sorry," the swimmer whispers into the darkness. Naegi imagines her wiping her eyes. "I'm just...I'm really scared. What are we going to do? I don't want to be apart from anyone..."

"It'll have to happen eventually." Togami is, as always, the picture of logic but not of tact. Asahina dissolves into tears again.

"It's not as though we'll never see each other again," Hagakure says softly.

"Unfortunately."

"Shut up, Togami-chi."

Naegi snorts at the heir's coping mechanisms, those being 'keep acting like as much of a jerk as possible'. He wonders when he got so good at reading Togami, who is obviously (to him) burdened with the same uncertainty as the rest of them. After all, he's not sleeping either.

He also wonders if Kirigiri's awake with them, or if she's sleeping. Her yoga mat was right next to the bed, close enough for Naegi to touch her if he dropped his arm down, but he doesn't. If she's awake, he knows she prefers listening instead of talking, and if she's actually asleep, he's not certainly not going to bother her.

"I know what I'm going to do," Fukawa chips in finally, speaking more steadily and with more confidence than they'd ever heard. "I'm going to write a book."

"Don't you usually write romance, though?"

She gives an offended sniff. "A good writer isn't restricted to just one genre. I can write whatever I like. Y-You think I can't? You're not the only one with t-talents, you know..."

"That's not what I meant." Naegi thinks he can hear Asahina smiling. "I'm sure it'll be wonderful, Fukawa-chan."

"Of c-course it will."

The conversation peters down to a halt after that, and one by one, starting with Hagakure, everyone's breathing evens out and in some cases loud snoring fills the room. One conversation in the middle of the night had somehow put everyone at ease, just for a little while. Tomorrow is going to be hard, and they don't know if they'll be together at the end of it, but for right now they're safe and together.

Naegi, however, still can't bring himself to sleep. He sees Junko Enoshima in the darkness, turning and beckoning him closer. He lays and listens to the sound of everyone else sleeping, until someone else speaks again.

"I have to tell my mother about my father's death," Kirigiri says.

That's all she says. Her voice is carefully controlled, but Naegi remembers the slump of her shoulders when they found that photograph in Jin Kirigiri's office, and feels touched when he realizes she spoke to him when she didn't speak to anyone else.

He drops his arm down then. Kirigiri takes his hand and laces her fingers through his, and the two slowly drift off like that. While he's holding Kirigiri's hand, Junko Enoshima and the trash compact leave him alone.

* * *

**I'm so late to the game with this one. Anyway, might continue with this, might not, certainly could if people wanted. **


End file.
